Note 43 — III.
Reading edition
On the 7th of April, 1861, the Ohio Legislature passed a bill concerning the Rights and Liabilities of Married Women.
Sect. 1 conveys the impression, that all married women may control their rents and issues of real estate belonging to them at marriage, or separately received after.
Sect. 5, however, says "that this law shall not affect any rights which may have become vested in any person at the time of its taking effect;" which, of course, cuts off from its beneficial results all persons previously married.
It seems a perfectly simple matter to a woman to obviate the difficulties and disappointments which arise in this way.
Let parties married under the old law, but desiring to benefit by the new, go before a magistrate, and state their wish; and then let the decision in their favor be published in the regular way.
Such a method would not benefit parties at variance; but it would benefit a large class of women engaged, or desiring to engage, in independent business.
The Ohio law repeals a former law of 1857, which secured to all married women the control of the sale or the disposal of personal property exempt from execution: so its benefits are of a nature by no means unmixed.